The Nursery Gardens will become the Science Gardens on Friday 27 September. This emblematic green space in Valencia is the place chosen to host the third edition of the Nit Valenciana de les Investigadores.
Under the slogan Vine a viure el jardí de la ciència, there will be activities and shows for all tastes and ages: scientific workshops for girls, boys and young people, talks on Valencian research, relaxed monologues, free visits to the Museum of Natural Sciences of Valencia and the Church of San Nicolás de València -in this case, prior registration-, among other activities.
The III Nit Valenciana de les Investigators is organised by the Fundació per al Foment de la Investigació Biomèdica i Sanitària de la Comunitat Valenciana (FISABIO), the Universitat de València (UV), the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), INCLIVA Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria, the Museo de Ciencias Naturales de València, the regidories de Patrimoni i Recursos Naturals i d'Igualtat i Polítiques de Gènere i LGTB del Ajuntament de València and El Kaleidoscopio, company of the scientific park of the Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche (UMH).
The activities in Viveros will begin at 6 pm with a series of workshops aimed at enabling new scientific vocations to flourish and bringing science closer to Valencian society. For example, there will be an XXL board to learn about bacteria playing, workshops to understand from a genetic perspective why we are all equal and different, to prepare blandiblú, build a bridge with spaghetti or identify microplastics in common salt and water.
Simultaneously to the workshops, those who participate will be able to approach the photocall of the event and immortalize in video format their experience and their opinion about the importance of science.
Relaxed talks and monologues on science
The children's and young people's workshops and visits to the Museum of Natural Sciences will conclude at around 8 p.m. and will be followed by a series of monologues and relaxed conversations between scientists and scientists.
Dr. Vicente Navarro and Anna Quirant (FISABIO) will talk about how to correctly feed our bacteria and will explain the latest research into their relationship with diseases such as Alzheimer's or atopic skin.
For his part, Dr. Carlos Roma (INCLIVA Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria) will explain what they are, what they are for and why it is important to donate tissues and organs to biobanks.
Dr. Ana Lluch (UV) will give the paper La investigación en cáncer de mama y la catedrática emérita Dolors Corella (UV), El sabor de las ómicas en nutrición y salud.
Mª Pilar López Gresa and Purificación Lisón, scientists from the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology of Plants (UPV-CSIC) will start smiling with the monologue El aroma de la resistencia, which details how tomatoes emit an aroma that can protect our crops against drought.
Finally, Berta Rubio (IFIC) will talk about the origin of chemical elements and Nuclear Physics and Emilia Matallana (I2SysBio) why Producing wine is an art.
The culmination will be a performance by the Berenguer Dalmau Secondary School musical group (Catarroja), one of the winners in the 2019 edition of the video competition to encourage scientific vocations. De major vull ser com...
The journalist specialized in cultural and scientific information Reis Juan will lead the evening, in which the audience will also be able to test their knowledge of science through an interactive game.
The event is being held on the occasion of the European Researchers Night, a project of the European Commission to bring the most humane part of research closer to the citizenry and which is taking place simultaneously in 300 cities across the continent.
The activities are open to the public and no prior registration is required. All citizens are invited to attend and enjoy this European day that will turn Los Viveros into a science garden to grow new scientific vocations and make visible the importance of research and innovation.
ACTIVITIES
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
Workshop Biopolymers, edible packaging and microplastics (IATA). Firstly, the current problems of synthetic plastics related to their dependence on oil and the amount of waste generated will be discussed. In addition, the sources of obtaining, as well as the methods of production of different bioplastics will be shown and examples of application of these bioplastics in the food area will be included (as well as containers, coatings or food additives). Finally, attendees will be able to see microplastics found in common salt and water.
Workshop Discover the secrets of plants (IBMCP). Do plants have veins? Can you have a tree in a jar of jam? All this and much more can be discovered in the IBMCP workshop.
Workshop A particle accelerator on your table (IFIC). Particle accelerators are one of the main tools to understand the subatomic world. In them we accelerate known particles, such as protons or electrons, to very high speeds and then use that energy to produce new particles, which live very little or may even be unknown. In this workshop we will explain how an accelerator works and what is the purpose of machines like CERN's LHC, the world's largest particle accelerator.
Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV)
Workshop How to observe your voice. The voice generates a series of vibrations imperceptible to human sight. How could we observe it? With a simple system using a boat, a balloon, a mirror and a laser pointer and thanks to the vibration of the voice we will be able to draw the sounds that people make.
Chemical Science Workshops. Through this workshop, attendees can learn chemistry with simple experiments, playful and at the same time very didactic. They will be able to make, for example, a homemade lava volcano, experiment with toothpaste for elephants and colored flames or build their own homemade pH indicator, among other activities.
Workshop Building Bridges...with spaghetti. This workshop aims to bring participants closer to Civil Engineering and discover the role played by bridges within society, as well as from an artistic point of view. Small groups will be formed, which will make a prototype bridge with spaghetti and silicone guns. Once the bridges have been built, a load test is carried out, taking into account the weight of the bridge itself and the weight of the loads added to it. In this way, the efficiency of each of the bridges built is evaluated. This workshop, inspired by a similar one conducted by Professor M. Schlaich in Berlin, encourages critical thinking, teamwork and opens a new vision to participants about a structure as complex and essential as bridges.
Workshop The importance of drainage systems. Attendees will learn the importance of having drains to evacuate water in case of heavy rains. To this end, this workshop presents a model that reproduces a stretch of road, with its drainage organs, on which water is simulated with showers. The model shows the way in which the drainage organs keep the roadway free of water.
Robotics Workshop. The GROMEP group on the Alcoi campus of the Universitat Politècnica de València will teach basic concepts of robot programming in workshops that will allow all participants to enter the world of robotics.
Visits to San Nicolás. Before the workshops, between 4.30 p.m. and 6 p.m. there will be free guided tours -previously registered- to the Church of San Nicolás, where the frescoes of the church will be on display and the restoration process will be explained. The guided tours will be given by Pilar Roig, researcher at the IRP Institute of the UPV and director of the pictorial restoration of the frescoes of San Nicolás. Each visit will last 30 minutes. There will be a total of three shifts, for 25 people each. To attend, it will be necessary to reserve a place by writing an email to comunicacion@upv.es, indicating the shift (16.30 h, 17 h or 17.30 h). Reservations can be made until Thursday 26 September at 3 p.m. Reservations will be made until places are exhausted, in order of registration.
FISABIO Foundation
Bacteriopolis game. Like the goose game, the participants will become bacteria that will advance across a giant board until they reach Fisabio's laboratories. In the special boxes we will learn, for example, that Lactobacillus turns milk into yoghurt or that some bacteria can be resistant to antibiotics.
Biomedical Yincana. Scientific test with five questions that the participants will be able to solve following the clues. To find out all the answers will get a prize!
Workshop - Recite Your DNA in a tube. With the help of Fisabio's scientists, we will learn how to extract DNA from cells in our mouth and we will be able to see how it floats in the test tube!
Microscopic Life Workshop: What is a microorganism? How do you cultivate a bacterium? Have you never observed a hair under a microscope? Do you want to see what bacteria are like? We will observe plant cells from transparent onion membranes, cells from our own saliva, hair, blood... Are you ready?
University of Valencia (UV)
Prepare your blandiblú workshop. This experience consists of making the well-known blandiblú from common elements of daily life such as transparent glue, borax and water. To give colour, pastel dyes will be used and a few drops of fluorescent substances will be added that will make the blandiblú shine when it is illuminated with an ultraviolet light.
Workshop Invisible Inks. With the help of iron solutions with Prussian blue, you can write secret messages, and through a chemical reaction that occurs in the process, and revealing with water, you can decipher the written messages.
Workshop Come and synthesize here your molecular sponge MOF and purify our waters! Porous materials to save the planet. There are some very porous materials, known as metal-organic networks or MOFs (Metal-Organic Framework), which present ordered structures with pores of molecular size that can be controlled chemically. These MOFs can be seen as if they were a construction set, obtained by assembling their units, ligands and metals, thus obtaining infinite possible structures. MOFs work like sponges, being very useful for trapping and storing molecules in very small spaces of their structure, which can later be released. Its applications in biomedicine, for the controlled release of pharmaceuticals, or its uses with environmental implications, such as the selective capture of greenhouse gases, the collection of water from the air in the desert or the purification of water, stand out. These MOF materials can be obtained from low-cost ingredients and are therefore presented as possible materials of the future to promote cleaner energy.
INCLIVA, Institute of Health Research
Biobank Workshop. Various activities will be carried out to explain what a Biobank is and its purpose. In charge of the INCLIVA Biobank.
Workshop We are all the same, we are all different. This activity aims to explain what genes are and how they affect us. Activity carried out by the INCLIVA Precision Medicine Platform.
Vinegar fly workshop. Samples of the Drosophila melanogaster will be shown, with the possibility of observing them under the microscope, explaining that it is an insect widely used in genetic research, due to its short life cycle. In charge of the Translational Genomics Research Group of INCLIVA.